


Good News

by Tujima



Series: The Adventures of Harley Shepard and Garrus Vakarian [7]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-28
Updated: 2018-08-28
Packaged: 2019-07-03 15:33:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15821799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tujima/pseuds/Tujima
Summary: Before the Citadel DLC came out and we learned...what we learned...I had the head canon that the Illusive Man and Cerberus had tweaked Shepard so that her body would adapt and find new ways to survive - that way they wouldn't have to make another copy. It's my head canon for all of my Shepards and it makes my day so much brighter because of it.





	Good News

She’d gotten used to them - the headlights that constantly ran through the room from passing cabs, the random advertisements that illuminated depending on if it was day or night, even the odd sounds of a city surrounding her. It was amazing what a good set of blinds would do - although it did make it more difficult to spot attackers, from what Garrus and Zaeed had told her.

But something else was on her mind, and she wasn’t really sure how to share that with Garrus.

As soon as she’d returned from the doctor she’d leaned against the door, trying to steady herself as she tried to arrange her thoughts, trying to accept what he’d told her. She’d stayed that way until she heard the movement of her turian counterpart in the apartment and pushed herself into action - if she was busy it would hold off the inevitable...until she knew what to say...

For most of the afternoon she wandered about the apartment, slowly making it her own in little subtle ways as she cleaned. Changing the location for dishes or silverware in the kitchen, slowly swapping out the alcohol in the bar to things more suited to hers and Garrus’s tastes, changing the bed linens in the rooms to rich blues and reds instead of the stark black and white that Anderson had preferred. _Soldier to the end_ , she thought as she folded the sheets and hid them away in the linen closet. Everywhere she went she seemed to have her own soundtrack playing, her omni-tool playing a constant stream of randomness that she’d loved, each difference showing her broadened love for multiple types of music. Through it all though, she felt distracted, like she was doing it on autopilot.

And that’s what finally caught Garrus’s attention.

She finally ‘settled’ in the kitchen to wash dishes - something that she enjoyed doing by hand instead of using the dish washer that Garrus had spent a good thirty minutes explaining how to make work. Her ears twitched slightly at the creaking of the couch, the gentle clack of sniper rifled pieces being placed on a glass table, both signs that Garrus was on the move. When she heard the sound of his clawed feet on the kitchen tile, she tilted her head slightly, just so he knew that she knew he was there, but kept her eyes down on the task at hand, her hands and wrists buried in soapy water. She heard a soft chuckle as Garrus moved up behind her, wrapping his arms around her midsection and pulling her back against his hard chest, “Is something wrong, Harley? Did you get bad news?” he murmured against her hair as he lowered his head so his mandibles barely brushed her shoulder. She stiffened slightly at his question, and she knew he was trying to catch her eye, but she kept staring at the sink, “No, nothing’s wrong,” she replied, shaking her head slightly as she tried to rearrange her thoughts.

“I don’t believe that sweetheart,” he replied in a gentle voice, shaking his head gently, “what happened? News you didn’t expect?”

 _News you didn’t expect....yeah...that’s one way to put it_ , she thought with an internal chuckle. Her mind went back to the hospital where Chakwas had set up shop until the next time the Normandy left the Citadel. With her help and a few doctors that were curious, they’d given Harley a full examination, trying to find the cause of her uncontrollable dizzy spells, her waves of nausea if she moved too quickly, her random wants to eat anything in front of her, yet two minutes later not want to touch a damn thing. Chakwas thought it was something the Illusive Man had done, something in the software that wasn’t reacting well to Harley going against his plans, for not following his orders.

News she hadn’t expected was an understatement.

“It...it turns out that when they rebuilt me they gave me some extra bits,” she started with a light chuckle, biting her bottom lip as she used a hand towel to dry off her hands. “But we knew that,” Garrus replied, leaning away from her as she shifted and turned to face him. “True, we did. But Chakwas was able to fine tune what they’d done - apparently, to make me stronger and harder to kill then last time, they improved my body more than was originally thought. They...they made it so my body could...adapt? Is that the right word? Adapt? Anyway - my body apparently can change and shift to my surroundings, to what’s happening, so it’s easier to survive and heal,” she tried to explain, though it was starting to fall apart in her head, each word making even her confused. “Okay...but what does that mean now? How does this pertain to how you’ve been feeling the past few weeks?” he asked, leaning back against the island in the center of the kitchen, arching a face plate in an imitation of a raised eyebrow.

“It means...heh...,” she chuckled, her face heating and she knew she was blushing, raising her hand to run fingers through her curls, “that we’re going to find out what a turian-human baby looks like.”


End file.
